Editing Blues

Decided to get in a few more edits on The Detective’s Brother before turning it over to a real editor. You know, like how you clean your house before the cleaning lady comes so she doesn’t think you’re a total slob.

Anyway, part of editing means completely going through the manuscript with a fine tooth comb looking for typos and slip ups that you may not have noticed while you were writing. And boy did I find a ton of stuff that escaped my first pass. Last night I finished making all the changes, stepped back and looked at the computer, and got really sad.

I always get sad after I finish a story. You commit everything to writing it, spend time with the characters and really get to know them, live in the world, know everything about it, and then it’s over. You have to say goodbye and come out into the real world and it’s hard.

It’s not like you can’t just go back and read it over. If that feels too narcissistic, you can do it under the guise of another edit. It’s just hard to say goodbye sometimes.

Maybe I’ll write a short about the characters once it’s been published for awhile. I love these two idiots.